The present invention relates to a semiconductor device having a quantum wire that can be easily formed and that exhibits excellent characteristics, as well as to a method of producing the same.
Among the semiconductor devices, it can be theoretically expected that a quantum wire laser exhibits lower threshold value of oscillation and better temperature characteristics than those of the conventional double-heterostructure lasers and quantum well lasers. This has been mentioned in, for example, (1) M. Asada et al., Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, 24 (1985), L91, and (2) Y. Arakawa et al., Applied Physics Letters, 40 (1982), 939. Further, a built-in quantum wire without magnetic field has been reported in (3) P. M. Petroff et al., Applied Physics Letters, 41 (1982), 635. However, the structure for emitting light by the injection of carriers has not yet been known. None of the quantum wire light-emitting element of the type of carrier injection or the quantum wire device has yet been realized due to the fact that the thickness of the quantum wire element must be controlled to be smaller than de Broglie's wave length (about 200 angstroms) in both the direction of the film thickness and the direction perpendicular to the direction of the film thickness, involving great difficulty.